Saturday night’s quick and easy dinner was whole wheat penne with lots of mushrooms and broccoli. Cooked the mushrooms first with some onion, garlic, pepper flakes, salt, and oregano. I added the broccoli shortly before the penne was al dente. Then added the pasta and a cup of the pasta water plus some olive oil to make the sauce. I grated parmesan over the top but omit it for a vegan or vegetarian preparation.
Does anybody else do this? You know you have to go back to dieting on Monday so you eat everything that you would not normally eat in the days leading up to D-Day. So yes, I am human and we made hamburgers for the first time since last July 4th. I cannot even begin to tell you how delicious they were!
John grilled the hamburgers perfectly. He added salt and baking soda to the ground beef which makes them extra juicy. I made the tabbouleh. Here is my recipe. I think it is very tasty.
In celebration of Cinco de Mayo we made chicken enchiladas and spicy black beans. Our method is pretty simple. Buy a jar of salsa verde, corn tortillas, feta cheese, and rotisserie chicken. Shred the chicken. Put a layer of salsa verde down in a baking dish. Heat the tortillas over an open flame until they are supple. In each tortilla put some chicken, salsa verde, and cheese. Roll them up and put them in the baking dish seam side down. When you have completed all your tortillas cover them with salsa verde and sprinkle on cheese. You can use whatever cheese you like. We used feta because it is similar to queso fresca. Bake at 350 for about 25 minutes.
The spicy black beans are merely two cans of drained and rinsed black beans plus one can of Original Rotel, a spicy tomato and chile preparation. Heat until warmed through.
We still are finishing up leftovers from Sunday. This soup was made from a packaged mix but we diluted it a little more since it is very salty and added extra vegetables and some chicken pieces.
Perhaps it is because I prepared them but it seemed to me that the vegetables outshone the Chilean sea bass (which is not easy to do!) John roasted the sea bass for 15 minutes in a 400F oven. The fillets were seasoned with salt, tarragon, Old Bay, and a little olive oil.
Originally we were supposed to be having new potatoes with the fish but I had too many vegetables waiting to be used in the refrigerator and decided to go with a few of them. I cooked the snow peas and zucchini in a little water and a dab of butter. The zucchini broke down a bit but the overall flavor was delicious. For the kale and corn, first I separately cooked garlic slices in a bit of olive oil. Then I cooked the kale in the garlic enhanced oil adding the frozen corn partway through and putting the cooked garlic in at the end. Yummy.
Don’t let your veggies take a backseat to the protein! By taking as much care as you would cooking a protein you can have a really delicious plate. It is good sense and healthy eating to have your protein be almost like a condiment and fill your plate full of vegetables.
On Sunday we had a big family dinner with sous vide and then grilled boneless leg of lamb with chimichurri, scalloped potatoes, and asparagus with sauce gribiche. I was so busy that I forgot to take pictures! We had plenty of leftovers so we decided we would shelve our planned red lentil stew and have leftovers for dinner.
The sauce I made was a combination of soy sauce, sesame oil, and rice wine vinegar. As a first course we had matzoh ball soup which was also leftover from Sunday.
Our cross-cultural leftovers dinner was not only delicious but used up extras in our refrigerator and gave John and me a well-earned night off!
I was supposed to be eating some sort of egg thing on Saturday since we were having a big family dinner on Sunday, the normal breakfast for dinner day. But I just could not make myself do it. We had been talking earlier about what kind of pasta we would like this week and I decided that the kind of pasta I wanted was right now! So I sliced up some mushrooms, onions, and garlic and sauteed them in a little olive oil and then added a can of petite diced tomatoes and oregano. I seasoned at each step. I boiled some salted water and cooked 3 ounces of whole wheat pasta which I took out at about 5 minutes and let it finish cooking a combination of spaghetti sauce and a cup of pasta water. It was all done to perfection about 2 minutes later. I really enjoyed my dinner!
John prepared and ate his usual omelet.
On Friday John and I went out to lunch at the Yeti Restaurant, a Nepalese?Indian place, in Glen Ellen, CA. These days when I am going to eat out I like to go to a restaurant that makes something I do not usually make at home or that is difficult to make at home. I also like to get some new ideas for something I might try making in the future.
I ordered the bukhara dal and it was wonderfully delicious. John was equally happy with his chana pindi. According to the menu the dal, or black lentils in this case, are ”cooked overnight in the embers of the tandoori together with onions, chili, ginger, fresh cream and butter with a garnish of cilantro tomatoes and sprout beans.” Ah, cream and butter, that must be one reason why it was so delicious. John’s chana (chickpeas) pindi is described as “garbanzo beans cooked with mango powder and Indian spices.”
Now I have two new ideas for vegetarian dinners!
We went to Costco on Tuesday and decided to buy a package of tuna that looked great. I have been wanting to try making poke so this seemed like a good time. I used this recipe from Serious Eats as a starting point https://www.seriouseats.com/ahi-poke-hawaiian-raw-tuna-salad-recipe Of course I put my own spin on it by using less soy sauce and less sesame oil plus substituting the Splenda for the honey. I was amazed when I went to one of the local grocery stores and that had ripe mango and ripe avocado. It seemed like an omen that I should make this dish. I sliced the cucumber and the cabbage thinly on the mandolin and chopped the other ingredients. We had some leftover rice and some left over dressing from the salmon bowls which I sprinkled on top. Then I mixed some mayo and sriracha for a drizzle. It was delicious!! I am looking forward to making this again although not too often since tuna is very expensive!
Omnivore 